My Brno – Tomino Kelar

Tomino Kelar runs Brno’s top independent music venue, Kabinet Múz, as
well as drumming with the band Midi Lidi. Kelar is from the Moravian
capital but actually lived for several years in Wales and at one point was
a member of Mountaineers, a group that were on the Mute label. Our tour of
“his Brno” begins at Kavárna Praha, a cool, shoe-box shaped space in
the grounds of the city centre Moravian Gallery.

“At that time it used to do quite adventurous concerts and since then
it’s kind of mutated.

“It’s done theatre. It’s a gallery. It’s connected to Moravská
galerie, but it’s independently run and therefore it’s a little bit
more adventurous than what some might consider Moravská galerie to be.”

I guess it’s called “Praha” café because it’s connected to
the
Pražák Palace [Pražák being, as a well as a surname, a slang term for
Praguer] here?

“Exactly. I think the idea when it started was that it would confuse
people and therefore that would be like a positive PR tool to get it out
there and get people to know the place.”

This is slightly off the point, but how deep is the antipathy that
Brno
people have towards Prague and Praguers?

“I think because it’s a student town it’s not really that noticeable.

“But when you delve deep down, it’s just like the second city: every
second city has some sort of paranoia or an inequality complex, where it
starts competing.

The next port of call on our jaunt around “Tomino Kelar’s Brno” is
the wonderful new courtyard at the theatre Divadlo Husa na provázku. Our
guide’s mother, Ida Kelarová, is a famous Romani singer, but she in fact
started out as an actress at the theatre, which is now on the bustling
square Zelný trh but then was based at a top local art venue.

“It’s kind of changed quite a lot in the last year or half a year.

“The whole artistic side of things has changed a lot and the direction
has changed a lot.

“And with that it’s actually cosmetically changed quite a lot as well.

“So it’s an interesting place that I’d recommend people to go and
visit.

“It looks completely different inside than it used to do – at least the
courtyard where we are now, that’s changed quite a lot.

“It’s a nice place to sit, with a lot of greenery, a nice bar and lots
of very friendly people.

“So it’s a pleasure to sit here at the moment.”

Tell us something about the history of Divadlo Husa na provázku. It
was
from the ‘70s?

“My mother used to be an actress there. It used to be in Dům umění
[House of Art], which was an art gallery in Brno throughout the Communist
regime.

“It was an alternative theatre that now and again actually got permission
to sort of leave the country and go and represent Czechoslovakia at
alternative festivals, let’s say.

“Therefore the regime was very frequently quite panicky about it and sent
some delegates with the touring party, who the theatre company very, very
quickly got drunk and then did whatever they wanted to do in Denmark, for
example, or in other countries.

“So they were very, very persuasive, the whole company: the actors, the
actresses, the production lady, Truda, and all the other members of the
company.

“They always had a lot of fun. They were a bubbly theatre company and
they just got away with a lot of things that other theatres didn’t get
away with.

“Since then they’ve moved to this place, which is on Zelný trh, and
for a long, long time it was a theatre that kind of remembered that period
and used it as the driving motor of its current existence. Or at least its
existence until two or three years back.

“And now it’s changed quite a lot, in terms of the people that run it
now.

“They’re completely different. They respect the history of what it used
to be, but they’ve really taken that bold step – at last, finally, a
group of people have managed to take that bold step and take it in a
completely different direction.”

Did you spend a lot of time around the theatre as a kid?

“I grew up in the theatre.

“I mentioned this production lady, Truda, and basically I was like a
little dog when I was a small boy – I used to sleep underneath her table.

“I had a little bed under the production table and that’s where I used
to sleep, because my mother obviously was in rehearsals or performing, and
so on.

From the theatre we take a short stroll to Sukova St. and Kabinet Múz, the
very impressive alternative arts venue and café-bar that Kelar has been
running for several years. It was previously home to HaDivadlo, before the
theatre moved to another space a couple of blocks away. Amid the lunchtime
hubbub, Kelar explains how he found the location.

“HaDivadlo escaped and moved to a much larger venue.

“Since then it was kind of laying empty and dormant, not doing anything,
and at one point I went past the place and was looking in and seeing if
anything had changed and then all of a sudden a telephone number appeared.

“So I called it and basically signed the contract and started running a
venue which was slightly different to just a straight up theatre format.

“It’s predominantly a music club, with occasional films and plays.

“But it’s predominantly music. In terms of genre, it’s pretty much
anything goes, as long as it’s got an opinion and it’s not bog-standard
mainstream music.

“To me, Shabazz Palaces, which is an absolutely amazing band, or at least
their show here was absolutely amazing.

“It was the beginning of their tour in Europe and they played for I think
three hours and nobody got bored.

“Everyone was just mesmerised – it was fantastic.

“Young Fathers – that was a really good show as well, about two years
back.

“And then the cabaret kind of feel of Tiger Lillies, which was absolutely
amazing.

“I’m not a big fan of make-up when it comes to bands, but they seemed
to pull it off [laughs].

“The songs are great and they’re absolutely amazing musicians.

“So those three really stand out.”

Recently I noticed that The Warlocks were playing here and I instantly
went
to see when they would be playing in Prague, if they were also playing in
Brno. But there is no Prague date. How does that happen, that you get a
band playing here that isn’t going through Prague?

“That is really, really rare, it really is.

“But recently it seems to be working. I think we might have somehow made
a name for ourselves abroad and people are prepared to take routes, let’s
say Vienna to Warsaw, and don’t want to play Prague any more.

“They probably have played Prague, let’s say, two or three times and
they want to take a break.

“Black Lips, for example, which is a ramshackle punk band, very much like
Libertines used to be, they just avoided Prague this time round.

“And a lot of people from Prague came down to see them here.

“It was a sold-out show and it just suited the routing.

“Whereas in years gone by, that would probably not have happened.

“It’s a good thing, it’s a positive thing – not for Prague, but for
Brno [laughs].”

How do you get a sense of which bands will be big enough to draw
enough
people for you to book them? How will you know for sure that it’s worth
booking some band?

“There’s that one particular button called ‘the like button’ and it
still seems to offer a lot of information to a lot of promoters [laughs].

“So that’s one thing. Instagram also obviously tells you a lot.

“And then the history of the band – have they been here before, have
they not been?

“Also, and predominantly, is it a band that I really want to do?

“I don’t mind for a gig to be slightly in the minus, losing money, as
long as it’s something that you’re enjoying and people are enjoying.

“Because in the future it might be that the band will come back, and if
word spreads it’s actually worth doing.

“The relationships that you build with the band at that particular first
gig, where you’re risking a lot, always seems to kind of be fruitful the
second or third time round.”

Do you have any sense that audiences are different in Brno from in
Prague,
or is it the same everywhere? In some cities audiences tend to stand back
and are like, Impress me.

“I don’t think there’s a big difference, like there is in Britain.

“If you go to a London gig, to a venue somewhere in London, there’s a
lot of very, very spoiled people, or very critical.

“There’s that critical eye in London – it was always really difficult
to play there.

“That isn’t so noticeable here.

“But, you know, Prague offers a lot more gigs, so therefore people make
the choices that they make and they make them more consciously.

“They have three or four choices, they make a choice and if the one
they’ve chosen out of those four wasn’t a good show, then they probably
would be a little bit upset [laughs] that they made that wrong choice.

“Here in Brno the situation is still that we’re grateful that there are
things that we can go and attend.